Mile 22 review
It's a pity the audience has to suffer through the 35km journey to the airport, frame by tedious frame.
Mark Wahlberg as James Silva in Mile 22. Picture: STX Films
Mile 22 is a miserable, choppy and uneven action yarn that even Mark Wahlberg’s heroics cannot save.
Director Peter Berg’s approach hinders every frame of this tedious slog of narrative, where the relentless fight scenes are so sharply edited it’s impossible to see who is doing what to whom. But it doesn’t matter because the story doesn’t make any sense.
Wahlberg plays a CIA officer named Jimmy Silva. Jimmy, we learn, was a child prodigy whose mind “moves faster than others”. He uses his remarkable intellect to become a killer for the US government.
He is not a nice guy, mistreating his colleagues and abusing his underlings.
Lauren Cohan as Alice Kerr in Mile 22. Picture: STX Films
He continually screams at a fellow member of his team (Lauren Cohan). On a co-worker’s birthday, he swats the cake off the table. He professes to hate nerds who work on computers and rants on about governmental slaughter.
Silva’s latest mission involves ferrying an important informant (Iko Uwais) out of a fictional Asian country. He is instructed to do this by his superior, played by a creepy John Malkovitch. The informant knows the location of some stolen radioactive powder.
The country’s corrupt government would prefer he did not leave, which makes the 35km trek to the airport especially dangerous. A pity an audience has to suffer through it, frame by tedious frame.
Info
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Iko Uwais, Lauren Cohen, John Malkovich
Director: Peter Berg
Classification: 16 LV
